Nostalgia Cam: Badree Bamboozles Bombay Boys!
One could argue that a T20 hat-trick is easier in comparison to achieving the feat in Tests because a batsman is not always trying to go after you in the longer format of the game. Moreover, the purists in whites are believed to have an expertise in stonewalling everything possible thrown at them.
But in T20Is the margin of error is less for the bowlers as well. A few inches here and there and the batters happily deposit the ball into the stands. Thus, to formulate a plan accordingly that makes it WWW in the scorecard is not as easy as the purists might believe. In the 12 years of the IPL there have been just 16 bowlers who have managed to pull the trick off.
On 14th April 2017, Caribbean spinner Samuel Badree engraved his name in the coveted list. Chasing a modest total Mumbai Indians would not have thought what was going to strike them. Samuel Badree opened the attack and when he came to bowl the 3rd over, the score was 3/1. First ball was a dot and then came the googly which Parthiv Patel mistimes to Chris Gayle.
Mitchell McClenaghan was sent in as a pinch hitter, only for Badree to foil the experiment. A low full toss hit straight down the throat at long-on. And then the big fish which no one would have expected. A perfectly pitched googly that snuck in through the defence of the captain Rohit Sharma to crash into the stumps. Chinnaswamy erupted in joy as Samuel Badree became only the second RCB bowler to claim a hat-trick in the IPL after Praveen Kumar. The Caribbean spin maestro had upset what should’ve been a straightforward chase for the Mumbai Indians.
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